The World Shapers - Novelization
by MilwaukeeTimeLady
Summary: On the planet Marinus, a world the Doctor once visited long ago, he faces his greatest peril - one that even the all-powerful Time Lords refuse to aid him in combating.
1. Part One

Marinus. Somewhere far in the future...or past...in a distant galaxy. Rain pummels down onto a long walkway connecting two bodies of land, the only places not being spared were underneath large arch-like sculptures. Clouds filled the sky, grey and menacing. The acid sea sloshed and heaved underneath the stone bridge.

Suddenly, a new noise could be heard among the rain. A strange whooshing, grinding sound. At first, it seemed to be coming from everywhere, from the rain, the bridge, the acid sea. Then, a blue box began to materialize on top of the bridge. It flickered in and out of this dimension, before becoming opaque and quite touchable with a loud thud. It stood there, for a few moments, before the door opened and three figures could be seen standing in the doorway. Three figures that, obviously, had no rhyme or reason to be in this place at all. The first that stepped out was clearly the one in control of the group...even though he looked no more like a child that had been left to dress himself. A coat that looked more like a patchwork blanket flapped in the wind, and curly light blonde hair blew haphazardly with it. He reached into his coat and somehow, from somewhere, pulled out an umbrella that was also rainbow colored, Holding it out in front of him, he gripped it tightly and opened it up to the rain, before motioning for the figures behind him to follow.

The next person to come out truly showed that three who came were to be taken with a grain of salt. Well... _person_ was an overstatement. It was a penguin...and a rather annoyed one at that. Behind the penguin stood a young woman with long brown hair to her shoulders, pale skin, and lipstick, and wore an outfit that almost looked as if the older man had picked it out for her - a yellow shirt and a red and green striped jacket. The man looked around, before huffing loudly.

"Well." as he was talking, he set off at a brisk pace up the pathway. The girl and the penguin had to rush to keep up with him, before staying close and trying to avoid being hit by the onslaught of rain. "Here we are. This is where that distress signal was coming from." The girl made a noise of disgust, running her hands up and down her arms.

"Nice weather." she said in a thick American accent. The man seemed distracted, and suddenly stopped in his tracks. The other two had to quickly avoid getting doused in water.

"Do you ever get deja-vu?" he asks the two of them. "I'm sure I…" his eyes go wide, before scrunching shut in a show of deep concentration. "I know this place…"

"You've been here before, Doc?" the penguin...well, _Whifferdill_ , Frobisher, asked.

"Mmm…" the Doctor seemed to be in a different place. Lost in memory, perhaps. "Something to do with keys. And a...conscious machine? I don't really know. Everything is so vague prior to my second regeneration, but I do remember being her and coming up against a race of amphibious assassins known as the Voord. I'm sure the planet was a lot busier than." He begins to continue walking, muttering quietly to himself. Peri and Frobisher stopped suddenly in the middle of the bridge, noticing a large structure separate from it, large and black and rather gaudy looking. Peri, seeing that the Doctor hadn't noticed, called out to him.

"Doctor ! Doctor, look!"

The Doctor turned around at Peri's call, walking back to stand beside her and Frobisher. He seemed unconcerned. "Oh, don't worry about that, Peri. It's just a TARDIS." Peri seemed taken aback.

" _That's_ a TARDIS?" she asked, looking at the Doctor. He nodded, a look of understanding coming across his face.

"Well. I think we can safely assume we've found the source of the distress call."

"Uh, Doc…" Frobisher tapped the Doctor on the leg. "While we're on the subject of distress...I think you'd better take a look down here." He motioned down a flight of stairs, to where a figure lay crumpled on the ground. Eyes that looked more like empty sockets stared up at the travellers, skeletal arms reached out towards them from a brown robe that hung off their body. Their mouth was moving, but no words seemed to come out.

"We've got a Time Lord in trouble!" the Doctor exclaimed, and rushed down the stairs to the dying man. Peri and Frobisher raced after him, trying their best to avoid slipping on the wet ground. Frobisher, unluckily, slipped on the stairs and fell backwards into the sea. The younger Time Lord kneeled over the elder one, placing his arms strategically to help them sit up. He was gasping for breath, and seemed to be searching for something in the Doctor's eyes. "Hold on old chap. We'll get you back to your TARDIS." The old man whispered something, something that could barely be heard over the rain.

"Pl...planet 14…"

"What's that?" the Doctor asked him. The Time Lord started to relax against the Doctor's grip, his eyes beginning to drift away to some other place. But he managed to say those words one last time.

"Planet 14…"

Then, he collapsed fully in the Doctor's arms. The Doctor gently laid him down against the stairs, adjusting him so it seemed like he were asleep. He turned up to Peri, who was holding the umbrella over him. "He's gone." he said, standing up next to her. Frobisher clambered out of the water, shaking his feathers out like a wet dog. Peri notices the old man starting to glow and pulse, an energy radiating around him. She nudges the Doctor.

"What's happening? Is he regenerating?"

"Not this time." the Doctor replies, wringing out his coat. "He's exhausted all his bodies. His flesh will break down into degenerate matter, then into random molecules…" Just as he was saying this, the glow enveloped the man, causing him to look like he were covered in concrete. The pulse grew stronger and stronger, until the only thing that remained was bones and bone marrow...and even that was disappearing at an alarming rate.

"Yeuk!" Peri exclaimed. The Doctor, who was walking back up the stairs, Frobisher at his side, turned around at Peri's voice.

"Strange.." he murmured. "It doesn't usually happen _that_ fast." A new sense of purpose about him, he walks up the stairs, Peri rushing to catch up, her hair blowing behind her. The three stop in front of the dead man's TARDIS, Peri looking at the Doctor in confusion.

"What are we going to do now?" she asked.

"Well, I don't know about you, but I want a word with his TARDIS. There's more to this than meets the eye." the Doctor says. He walks up in front of the door, which was almost invisible among the black ebony architecture of the TARDIS. Rummaging in his pockets for a minute, he takes out a lockpick and begins to fiddle with the lock holding the door shut.

"This looks suspiciously like breaking and entering." Peri says, unimpressed by the Doctor's 'secret skill'. The Doctor chuckled, a smirk playing across his lips.

"I won't tell anyone if you don't. Besides, this is how I got by own TARDIS." A click can be heard. "Ah! There." He opens the door, letting the three of them see the inside of the TARDIS for the very first time, before walking inside. "Come on, mind the psychosculpture!" As soon as Peri entered the TARDIS, she gasped. Huge stalactite crystals hung down from the ceiling - she assumed that this was what the Doctor called 'psychosculpture - sparkling as if a thousand suns were shining directly onto them. In fact, it looked like the entire interior of the other Time Lord's TARDIS was made of crystal, or some sort of crystal like substance.

"Doctor, this is amazing! Oh, it's beautiful!" she breathed. The Doctor huffed.

"Rubbish." he snapped. "It's gaudy and ostentatious. Typical new model…" Frobisher was still standing in the doorway of the TARDIS, obviously hesitant to enter in. He had a perplexed look on his face...or looked as perplexed as a penguin could look.

"Do...do I need to see a psychiatrist, or can I really hear whispering?" he asked the Doctor, finally getting up the will to walk up and stand next to Peri. The Doctor chuckled.

"That's conversation, Frobisher. It always happens when two TARDISES get together. They're terrible gossips once they get started. You just have to be firm." he cleared his throat, before yelling in a voice so loud it made Frobisher lead upwards into Peri's arms, causing her to drop the umbrella she was carrying. "SHUT UP AND PAY ATTENTION." The whispering between the TARDISES immediately stopped. The Doctor smirked and put his hands on his hips. "That's better. Now what exactly was your mission here?"

The TARDIS hesitated a moment, before speaking, it's voice exactly like it's deceased pilot. "We were sent by the Gallifreyan High Council, following evidence of violent temporal disturbances in this spacetime locus."

"I see." the Doctor nodded in understanding. "And what was the nature of these disturbances?"

"Sporadic pulses of accelerated temporal progression." the TARDIS answered.

"Frobisher!" Peri laughed from behind the Doctor...who seemed a tad bit annoyed to have been interrupted from his conversation with the TARDIS. "Where did all those feathers come from?"

"What?" Frobisher looked down at himself, alarmed. Tons of feathers were falling off his body, littering the floor. He squaked in embarrassment. "Oh. I don't usually molt so badly." Seeing Peri was still laughing quietly at him, he said, "I don't know what you're laughing about. Have you _seen_ your hair?"

"What?" Peri asked. She reached up and touched her hair experimentally. It had been shoulder length when they had arrived on Marinus, but it now reached below her shoulders, and had grown scraggly. "It's...it's long! And my fingernails…" she made a noise of pain, drawing her hand away from her neck. Blood was visible on the tips of her nails, which looked sharp as knives. She looked up at the Doctor, desperate for an explanation. "What's happening to me? Doctor look at us! What's going on?"

"Accelerated temporal progression. Somehow, times been speeded up on Marinus." he picked up the umbrella from the floor, and began to walk back out the door. "It's dangerous to stay out in the open for too long. Come on!" he impatiently waved his hand at the two. "Back to the TARDIS. Chop-chop!"

"You mean I don't know what _age_ I am now?" Peri exclaimed, rushing after the Doctor, Frobisher at her heels. Just as the three of them were out of the TARDIS, it began to dematerialize, whooshing and groaning, until it disappeared off the surface of Marinus completely. "Doctor, this is all happening too fast for me. Where's that TARDIS going?"

"It'll return to Gallifrey to report the death of its pilot." he yelled over the rain.

"And where are we going?"

"Use that primitive organ you humans call a _brain,_ Peri. We're going to look for Planet 14 and find out what's behind all this! You see, I'm sure I've been there before, too. Or I will be there at some point in spacetime if you follow me. If only I could remember the details…" they arrive at the TARDIS, and Peri leaned over to open the door for the two others. The Doctor leaned against the doorframe of the police box, squeezing his eyes shut, trying to remember. Frobisher watched him...silently wondering why on Earth he wasn't doing this inside the TARDIS. "I think...I think I was in my second body. Which means I was travelling with…yes…" he opened his eyes, a sense of purpose behind them now. "That's it! He might remember. Let's go and ask Jamie!"

"Jamie…?" Frobisher was confused. Peri popped her head out of the TARDIS at the mention of the name. "Who's Jamie?!" He follows the Doctor into the TARDIS, and it takes off with a whooshing and grinding symmetrical to the second TARDIS, leaving Marinus desolate of life...or so they thought. As they left, figures crept out of the shadows, figures that somewhere, sometime, the Doctor himself would be fighting...


	2. Part Two

_**SOMEWHERE IN SPACE**_

A spaceship drifted through an endless mass of stars. Despite the beauty outwardly, someone was complaining in the cockpit of it.

"Why didn't I see though it? Why did I trust that job advertisement? Building a better world they said. Travel, excitement, achievement they said!"

"Well, at least it's true about the travel, Maxilla." their partner said, trying desperately to defuse his friends annoyance.

"Six gyres in infraspace, punctuated by land-falls on a few scabby mud-balls?" Maxilla exclaimed, turning and glaring at his co-pilot. "It's not really what you'd call sightseeing, is it?"

"As long as I get paid, I don't care what I do." he responded. Maxilla huffed.

"That's your problem, Deedrun. No ambition! I don't want to spend the rest of my days repairing _world shaper machines._ "

"Look on the light side, Maxilla - only two more planets to go and then we head for home." Deedrun sighed. Maxilla seemed surprised.

"Really? Only two more? So what was that last one then?" he asked.

"That was Planet 13. The _last_ one was Planet 13."

 _ **SCOTLAND, LATE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY**_

 __"I've never been so insulted!" Frobisher muttered. He and Peri were walking through the moors of Scotland, the Doctor and Dugald, their guide, a few feet in front of them. "We've only been here _thirty minutes_ , and already I've been prodded by enough semi-evolved apes to fill a zoo!" Peri sighed, pulling her trench coat tighter around herself.

"Well, I thought it was pretty clever of the Doctor to tell those people we were Spanish conjurors and you were a 'fabulous talking beast from the Orient'..." she laughed.

"Yeah, genius. This place is the _pits_." Frobisher grumbled, looking pretty angry for a penguin.

"Well at least the air's clean." Peri countered.

"Aye, I thought you were a conjuror as soon as I clapped eyes on you, Doctor. Maybe you'll show us a trick later on?" Dugald asked the Doctor.

"I probably will, Dugald, but first I must see Jamie McCrimmon." he said.

"Aye, well that's where we're going, though I don't know what business you might have with mad Jamie…" he trailed off, shaking his head, as if pitying the person he was talking about. The Doctor turned sharply to Dugald, his eyes glistening.

" _Mad Jamie?_ " he exclaimed.

"Aye, he fought against the English in the Jacobite uprising, and his head's not been right since. He'll tell you he's been to the moon and stars and seen monsters, but he's a harmless old soul." Dugald said...although the tone of his voice gave away that he didn't believe what he said. They stopped in front of a small, run down cottage in the middle of the moor. "This is his croft here."

"Mad Jamie?!" the Doctor repeated again, as if he couldn't believe it. He seemed to be in a daze as he followed Dugald up to the door of the cottage. Dugald turned away from the Doctor, and rapped on the door loud enough to wake the dead.

"Open up there, Jamie McCrimmon! Come on, man! You have visitors here to see you!" he yells. Movement can be heard inside the cottage, but no one comes to the door. Dugald raps on it again, this time a voice can be heard calling.

"Go away! Leave me in peace!" Jamie McCrimmon yells. The Doctor pushed Dugald away lightly, approaching the door himself.

"Let me try, Dugald." he whispers, seeing the the other man was about to protest. He raises his hand to the door and knocks himself. "Jamie? Jamie, It's me...the Doctor. Can I come in?" Movement can be heard again in the cottage, and a lock can be heard unbolting. Jamie opens the door warily.

"Doctor? Is it really you?" he whispers. Then, Jamie sees the rainbow clad man fully, and steps out of the cottage, a huge grin on his face. He grips the Doctor's arms. "Oh, Doctor! Doctor, I _knew_ you'd come back one day! And Peri too! And...and...and this wee thing." Jamie finished kind of lamely, his eyes falling on Frobisher. The penguin looked annoyed.

"Name's Frobisher, pal." he muttered. Jamie shook his head suddenly, as if clearing it of something.

"Never mind. Come in, come in." he beckoned them inside.

"Doctor?" Peri asked, confused.

"I...I must have miscalculated our arrival by about forty years. Poor Jamie…" he lowered his voice, so that Jamie wouldn't hear them talking. But Jamie, who had grown accustomed to hearing lowered voiced over the years, heard them anyway...though he tried not to show it.

"If only I'd known you were coming." he said, picking up a blanket from the floor and draping it on the back of a chair. "Just let me tidy up here...I...I…" Jamie suddenly collapsed to his knees, holding his face in his hands. The Doctor rushed over, concerned...before realizing his normally strong, well put-together friend was crying. "Oh, Doctor, everything's such a m-mess and I'm so _old._ You shou-shouldn't have seen me...like this…"

The Doctor knelt beside Jamie, and drew him close. Jamie was visibly shaking in his arms. "I don't care how old you are, Jamie. You're still my friend, and I'm counting on your help. Come on…" Jamie, with the Doctor's help, eventually pulls himself together. The Doctor squeezes his shoulder in reassurance, before helping him stand up. Peri and Frobisher have been awkwardly watching this unfold from the doorway.

"You've met this guy before?" Frobisher asked Peri under his breath.

"Yeah…" Peri answered him. "In Spain, a couple of years ago. He was an awful lot younger then."

Jamie moves toward the fire in the middle of the cottage, taking a dotted handkerchief and blowing his nose. He then reaches on the mantle and picks a small stick up off of it. Sticking it into the fire, he asks, "Tell me how I can help you, Doctor."

"Well, we've just seen a Time Lord die on Marinus. His last words were 'Planet 14'. Does that mean anything to you?" the Doctor asks. "I know I was travelling with you last time I heard the name…"

"Planet 14?"Jamie asked, lighting a candle on the mantle. "Didn't the cyber controller mention Planet 14? Remember, Doctor? When we helped the Brigadier, the cyber controller said he remembered us from Planet 14. It was the _cybermen!_ "

"Cybermen!" the Doctor turned and walked to stand next to Peri, tapping his chin thoughtfully. "This is worse than I imagined. Back to the TARDIS, I think." He was about to leave with Peri and Frobisher, when Jamie called to him from inside the cottage.

"Doctor…?" he asked quietly. The Time Lord turned to him. Knowing that he had his attention, Jamie said, "Let me come with you. There's nothing for me here. Please, Doctor. This one last time." The Doctor looked at him for a minute, studying him. Jamie broke eye contact first, beginning to wring the handkerchief in his hands. But then, the Doctor smiled.

"Come on, then." he said. "You can help with the magic show!"

Jamie laughs, then rushes outward to follow the Doctor. There, left alone in the cottage, the small candle that he had lit flickered...then whisked out.


	3. Part Three

"Ladies and gentlemen!" the Doctor called to the onlooking crowd. They had moved to the town centre, where the TARDIS was parked. People had gathered around quite rapidly when he was away talking to Jamie, confused and amazed by the strange blue fort. "You are about to witness a marvel of the age. A baffling feat of sorcery, taught to be by monks in Tibet. Watch closely now as my assistants enter the magic cabinet!" Peri rolled her eyes, but couldn't hold back a smile. Typical of the Doctor, to be so completely over the top on things like this. She glanced over at Jamie, expecting to see the same reaction, but he was instead looking like he wanted to rush inside the TARDIS and hide, like he was about to be ambushed at any second. Peri realized why he was looking so anxious when two onlookers called out.

"Look at old Jamie!" one of them laughed. "He thinks he's off to the moon again!"

"Mind you don't trip over your claymore, Jamie!" a man standing next to him yelled. Peri's smile dropped off her face immediately, and she glared seethingly at the two men.

 _If they say anything more..._ she thought to herself. Jamie glanced at her fleetingly.

"Leave it alone, Peri." he mutters. "I'm used to it." He then takes one more look at the people, before walking briskly into the TARDIS. Peri knew he could still hear the laughing, and followed him inside. The Doctor, who hadn't noticed anything out of the ordinary, was the last to enter the TARDIS, poking his head out the door right before he closed it.

"ANd now, before your very eyes, the cabinet will vanish off the face of the Earth. Bye!" he says, closing the door.

The TARDIS dematerialized from Scotland with the usual whooshing noise. The onlookers whispered to each other, the jokes about Jamie forgotten.

"Would you listen to that?" one whispered in awe.

"It's a _miracle!_ " a woman breathed, hoisting her child higher on her shoulder. Was it true then? Was mad old Jamie really telling the truth about his mystical Doctor?

"Och, it's all conjuring. I've seen it done before, in Edinburgh. The Doctor'll be back in no time at all. Just you wait." Dugald yells to the crowd. They wait a few seconds, the only sounds the birds and the woman's crying child, who, it seems, had gotten bored of the display. Dugald seemed alarmed. " _Doctor?"_ he called. But to no avail. The Doctor and his companions were gone.

"The old TARDIS hasn't changed much, Doctor." Jamie says from the console, placing his hands on it. Peri watches from the coat rack, Frobisher by her side. "It's as if I've never been away."

"I hope you don't live to regret it." the Doctor replies, smacking Jamie's hands off the console. "Don't touch. How many times must I tell you?"

"Jamie, I thought the Time Lords erased your memory when you left the Doctor?" Peri asked, walking up to stand beside him. The Doctor looked up, a proud gleam in his eyes. Or, at least, more of a proud gleam than normal.

"That's what they thought too Peri!" he said, "Fortunately, their understanding of the human mind is fairly limited."

"Aye…" Jamie trailed off, before smiling at Peri happily. "The Doctor taught me a few wee tricks to resist the Time Lords' machines. I never forgot one moment of our adventures together."

"And I'm extremely glad for that." the Doctor chuckled, shoving Jamie's shoulder playfully. Jamie laughed.

"Speaking of adventures, where are we going now?" Peri asks the Doctor, feeling a bit bad to be interrupting the Doctor and Jamie.

"We aren't going anywhere. We've arrived." the Doctor said, just as the TARDIS touched down on it's destination. "Now. I have a few theories about how the cyber controller could remember us from Planet 14 when we've never even _been_ there." He turns back to the three.

"Peri, get the door."

She flicks the switch, and the door opens with a hum. The Doctor walks briskly outside. "Welcome back to Marinus…" he trails off, making a small noise of surprise. Marinus, the former water world, was now completely water- _less_. The giant acid ocean that once covered almost the entire planet, was gone completely, and was replaced with rock with where it had formerly been. Lightning cracked across a dark sky, where stars sparkled. Frobisher pushed past Peri and the Doctor to see what the fuss was about. He looks at the now desolate planet and remarks,

"Well. Looks like somebody pulled the plug out, Doc."

"A whole planet can't just lose its oceans overnight! We must have overshot by hundreds...no _thousands_ of years!" Peri exclaimed.

"No...no the TARDIS chronometer is quite accurate. Only a week has passed since we were here last. I think I understand." the Doctor gets a troubled look on his face, staring off into space. Peri notices someone approaching from a craig above him, stumbling and obviously having trouble staying upright. She points up to them.

"Doctor _look_!" she yells. The Doctor turns, and there he sees Maxilla, the matinience operative for the worldshaper machines, panting heavily, and about to pass out. But he had also been affected by the rapid aging process...he looked to have a sixty year old body. Or, whatever that was in alien years.

"Help me...please...they're coming…" he pants. "It's all g-gone wrong. What have we done? It's all gone…" he collapses forward suddenly. Jamie rushes to him, and catches him before he hits the ground. Maxilla blinks upward, trying desperately to keep conscious. Jamie looked up at the Doctor, concerned. But the Doctor seemed to have no clue.

"What's happened to him?" he asks, standing above Maxilla and Jamie. Frobisher tugs on the Doctor's pant leg.

"Uh, that's a good question, Doc. Maybe you should ask…" the Doctor turns, obviously annoyed with Frobisher, but stops in his tracks when he sees the encroaching creatures. "Maybe you should ask them."

"Quickly! Everybody in!" the Doctor yells. Peri grabs Frobisher by the fin and rushes inside, holding the door for Jamie and Maxilla. The Doctor rushes in last, slamming his fist down on the door switch. Then, he punches some buttons on the console, causing a flicking on the screen, before the strange, silver skinned creatures appeared on screen.

"Doctor, what _are_ those things?" Peri asks him. She had been helping Maxilla. "They look like cybermen."

"No...no they're Voord. But something has changed them. There." he flicks a switch, causing them to take off. "We're safe in the time stream. Now perhaps we can get some answers from our friend here."

"Maxilla." the little alien panted, graciously taking a glass of water that Jamie had gotten him. "My name's Maxilla." He takes a sip of the water, before adding, "I'm a maintenance operative."

"You can call me the Doctor. These are my companions, Peri, Frobisher, and Jamie. What exactly is it that you maintain?" the Doctor asks, motioning to his friends.

"Worldshaper machines. They're used to artificially accelerate time and cause rapid environmental changes...on _uninhabited_ worlds, of coarse." he chuckles, taking another sip of water. "This was Planet 14 on our list."

"So I was right." the Doctor said. Frobisher waddled over, an angry look in his eyes. He pointed a flipper at Maxilla.

"Listen, worldshapers were banned _ages_ ago, after they used one on Yxia and the whole planetary system fell apart." he squaked.

"Look, don't blame me!" Maxilla moaned, putting his face in his hands. "I only repair the things. I didn't even want this job." The Doctor placed his hand on his shoulder.

"It's alright. Please go on." he said. Maxilla sniffed, running his hand across his face.

"Well, when Deedrun - that's my partner - and I arrived, we found that a _big_ mistake had been made...Planet 14 _wasn't_ uninhabited. A race called the Voord had captured the worldshaper, and used it to rapid evolve themselves." He looks away to the opposite end of the TARDIS, a dark glint flashing across his eyes. "Their tampering resulted in an overload and…" he closes his eyes. "Well, I managed to erect a Time Shield but...Deedrun…poor Deedrun. The shield couldn't protect me completely, but at least I'm still alive."

"When the effect ceased, thousands upon thousands of gyres had passed. The oceans were dry, and the Voord had mutated further. More of their body was replaced by cybernetic grafts…"

"You mean they're evolving into what we know as the _Cybermen?"_ The Doctor whispered, looking rather dark. "The Voord _are_ the Cybermen?" He stands over the console, and turns on a button, which begins to glow a dull yellow color. "Well, whatever they are, they have the worldshaper! Used as a weapon, it could devastate this galaxy."

"Oh, what am I going to do?" Maxilla cries, throwing his face in his hands again.

"You're going to help me destroy the worldshaper." the Doctor turns off the button. "The TARDIS has homed in on the machine's residual energy. Maxilla, Jamie...we're going in."


	4. Part Four

"Why'd you let me come and not the others, Doctor?" Jamie asked. They had been walking through a tunnel for about an hour now, and Jamie had drawn his dirk, just in case of trouble. Because with the Doctor, there was a _lot_ of trouble. He thought he'd better stay close to the Doctor...just in case.

"You _had_ to be here, Jamie…" he said, turning back to look at his friend. "This is where the cyber-controller meets us on Planet 14. Don't you see how it all fits?"

"Not really...no…" Jamie muttered. The Doctor shook his head, and was about to say something, when Maxilla called out from a few feet in front of them. A large, circular room, glowing fluorescent white, lay just a few steps away. And there in the middle of it was…

"Look! The Worldshaper! I can't believe we're in without a-" Maxilla screams suddenly, and collapses to the floor. The Doctor reached forward and caught his body. Smoke streamed out, and a large hole was burnt in the middle of his chest. His eyes still stared open, watching, blank and empty. The Doctor looks upwards at where the shot came from, his face hard, his eyes dark.

The cyber-controller was there, flanked by two less evolved Cybermen...carrying guns. One's was still smoking. The cyber-controller steps forward. "You waste your time, flesh-men." it says, its voice exactly like the Doctor remembered when meeting it in London, Jamie at his side...just like he was now. "The machine is ours and with it we can sculpt time according to our whim. Thus, we have secured it behind a protective field."

"Time?" the Doctor laughed. "You don't understand the first thing about time! How can you even suspect what you're about to become...cybercontroller?!" he rises to his feet, raising an accusing finger at the cybermen's leader. "I suggest you remember our aura's, controller. We'll be meeting again."

"I think not." the controller said, his robotic voice drilling through the heads of the travellers. "Burn them." The Doctor seemed unconcerned, again, turning to Jamie with a laughing look in his eye.

"Just like the good old days." he smirks at Jamie.

"Aye, Doctor." Jamie replies, before taking his dirk and completely knocking the head off of a cyberman. The Doctor delivered a roundhouse kick directly to another...sadly, falling over after this. Jamie looked at him, as if trying to make up his mind about something. Then, he advanced toward the worldshaper. "Now get out of here, Doctor! The others will need you."

"Jamie, what…?" the Doctor asked, picking himself off the floor and shaking his head to clear it. Only then did he realize what Jamie was about to do. "No! The forcefield!" The Doctor reached forward and grabbed Jamie's wrist. "I can't let you do this. I won't."

Jamie gave the Doctor a small, sad smile. "I never wanted to die in my bed, Doctor." The Scot took the Doctor's hand and pried it off of his own, held it for a second, then let it fall. "Goodbye."

"No!" the Doctor screamed from behind him. But Jamie's eyes were fixed on the worldshaper. If he could get in there, hit it just right...the machine would be destroyed. The Doctor would be saved. Jamie smiled to himself...before collapsing just a few feet away from the machine. Every part of his body felt like it was simultaneously on fire and frozen in ice, like thousands of gunshots had pierced his flesh.

"Oh...the pain…"he whispered hoarsely. He knew if he stayed here, the cybermen would get him. The Doctor wouldn't get away. The thought gave him strength, and he lifted himself off the floor. He approached the machine, raised his dirk, and fixed his eyes on the glass of it, where the Doctor was still visible. "I'll not let you down, Doctor." he whispered. "I never have. FOR CLAN MCCRIMMON." And he plunged his dirk into the worldshaper. A second was all it took for the pulse of accelerated energy to hit him. The Doctor, who was still watching, his arm still raised, watched in pain as one of his oldest friends was engulfed by it, watched as his body turned to a skeletal mass, and then fell to dust.

" _JAMIE_!" he screamed. He didn't have much time to grieve, however. The worldshaper hummed, like a helicopter in flight, before exploding in a storm of glass and mechanical parts. The accelerated energy from it was affecting all areas, nowhere was safe from it. Peri's voice could be heard, panicked, from the com clipped to the Doctor's coat.

"Frobisher, Jamie's tracer's just gone dead. What's _happening_ up there?" she asked the penguin, who was helping her keep an eye on the three. Or at least...before two of them died.

"The readings are running off the scale, Peri!" Frobisher yelled. "Looks like some sort of pulse of accelerated time, radiating out from the worldshaper. Seasons are coming and going in seconds!" The Doctor picked himself up off the floor for a final time, still stunned by the events that had just unfolded. The energy was racing toward him at an alarming rate, swirling and changing, as he ran to the exit of the chamber. He looked behind him one last time, trying to see if he could manage to get sight of the worldshaper one last time...but the wave was blocking all view. Above him, the cavern was collapsing, stone that had been there for centuries or more falling down to make room for newer stone. "Time's racing...uh, massive geological activity...mountains beginning to form, continental plates moving...it's going to engulf the entire planet!"

The Doctor races toward the TARDIS, trying desperately to stay in front of the oncoming wave. Peri and Frobisher open the door for him as he gets close enough. "Doctor! Run! It's right behind you!" Peri yelled.

"Move it, Doc!" Frobisher joined in. The Doctor got to the doors of the TARDIS, before losing any coordination at all, collapsing onto Peri. She grunts, but helps him walk into the console room. Peri looks out the door, expecting to see two people following him close behind.

"Maxilla? Jamie…?" she trails off, noticing the Doctor's face. Like he was just managing not to cry. He reached blindly over to the door control, pressing it. It closed with a soft hum, just like usual.

"Dead." he whispers, not looking at either of his companions. "Jamie's dead." Frobisher is still looking pointedly at the scanner.

"The time fields about to hit us!" he called out, just as the TARDIS rocked violently with the force. Peri and Frobisher and the Doctor clung to the console...the Doctor looking like it was taking all of his strength to do this one task. He bowed his head, placing it onto the console, not caring that the TARDIS was shaking and rocking. Dead. And he could do _nothing._ Nothing except watch. He felt guilty. Oh, so guilty. But inside, he knew he could do nothing. Nothing at all...save watch as the boy who grew into a man died quietly, and in pain. At least it was quick, he thought. Just a few seconds, and he was gone. But even that thought was not enough to ease the pain in his chest, in his mind. He felt the TARDIS stop, felt Peri kneeling next to him and drawing her arm around his shoulders. The Doctor looked up, a dark, resigned look on his face, deep in his eyes. He brushed Peri's hand off him, drawing his other down it face. It was wet. Was he crying? He supposed so. He hadn't cried for a while. Not since Adric...He stood, looking up at the scanner.

"Looks like it's all over, Doc." Frobisher said quietly.

"Is it safe to go out?" Peri asked him. The Doctor looked closer at the scanner, before noticing that three figures stood on the planet surface. Figures he knew. He clenched his fist against his leg, and slammed his hand against the door control.

"It's not a particularly hospitable environment, Peri. But I should think it's safe enough for us…" he says, practically running out the door. "If it's safe enough for the _Time Lords_. You're late." he snaps, putting his hands on his hips. "That party's over. But doesn't time fly when you're having fun?"

"Come now, Doctor." one of the Time Lords said, his voice oddly cool, despite the evident destruction all around them. "Sarcasm ill becomes you."

"I recognize this place now." the Doctor whispers. "Marinus, Planet 14, has become Mondas, home of the Cybermen."

"Why don't you just leave now, Doctor." the second ordered. "I'll pretend we never met here."

"But the worldshaper's last energy pulse will have completed the evolution of the Voord into the Cybermen! We have a chance to stop their evil at the root!" the Doctor yelled.

"It's all being dealt with."

"Now, please leave Doctor." the second added. "Before we impound your antique TARDIS…"

"You haven't heard the last of this!" the Doctor pointed an accusatory finger at the first Time Lord.

"Doc, maybe we'd better…" Frobisher tugged on the Doctor's coat. The Doctor huffed, fury dripping, before turning and rushing back into the TARDIS behind Frobisher and Peri, slamming the door behind him. A few seconds later, and the blue police box began to dematerialize from Mondas, whooshing and groaning. The Time Lords watched it go.

"He does get so passionate." one commented.

"Well, he's still young." the other replied. "He hasn't yet grasped the complex beauty in the construction of Spacetime. Within five million years, the cybermen will have evolved again. Beyond the need for bodies, they will become pure thought. The most peace loving and advanced race in the universe. They will lead us into a new era of understanding...as we saw when we visited their future yesterday. I think a few million years of evil and bloodshed is well worth the ultimate salvation of sentient life, don't you?" he turns to his colleague.

"Oh yes." the other chuckles. "Well worth it."

 _ **FIN**_


End file.
